George Wise did a great service in producing a marvelous book that will be read probably by few, yet fills and important gap in the history of science for the public in America. There is no doubt that, more than any other country, America values an educated lay public, and the efforts of the citizens of Albany, New York, to create a world-class observatory in the 1850s is known by few. However, this volume, more encompassing than "Elites in Conflict", shows on the one hand how intense the struggle can be to professionalize a scientific field on the one hand, and make it accessible and appealing to the public, on the other. With access to archival material necessary to make such a broad ranging survey, George Wise has distilled the over 150-year history of the Dudley Observatory into a fairly brief but well-documented study.
His history of Civic Astronomy with Dudley Observatory as the case study, does not answer the question as to whether these two goals can ever be reconciled. However, I am quite certain that he has shown that, if it can be accomplished at all, it will only be possible in a free and democratic society. He leaves us with the unanswerable question, and, I believe, with the hope that that struggle will continue and not be abandoned.
